Annual General Meeting

Presented by

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Mokgophana Ramasobana (Chair)

Cara Hartley (Deputy Chair)

Ayanda Mtanyana (Treasurer)

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21^st October 2021

Presentation Outline

Setting the scene

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Vision and Mission of SAMEA

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Theory of change

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Key milestones

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Lessons learnt

Current Board of Directors

Setting the scene – Political Economy

Global lens

• Developed and developing worlds
• Crises - Global warming, COVID -19 pandemic, widening wealth disparities and exclusions
• Thriving Capitalism - seen through fight for military and economic dominance, unequal quality and distribution of vaccines

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South Africa

• Widening inequality, unemployment and poverty scales (haves and have nots)
• Decrease in public trust (corruption, political sloganeering, racial tensions etc)
• A bleeding fiscus
• High Demand for service delivery
• Professionalizing the public service(meritocracy, depoliticization etc)

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Be purpose-driven: To live a purpose that supersedes the challenges of the times

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Vision

Monitoring and evaluation is widely recognised in South Africa as a profession and discipline essential to development, and practiced and used in a manner that adds significant value to effective, sustainable development in South Africa.

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Mission

SAMEA will cultivate a vibrant community that supports, guides and strengthens the development of monitoring and evaluation in South Africa as an important discipline, profession and instrument for empowerment and accountability.

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To lead ethically and effectively:

Values

1. Integrity

To act ethically, honestly, in good faith and best interest of the organisation.

2. Competence

To make informed decisions based on evidence, knowledge and skill, due care and diligence.

3. Responsibility

To take collective responsibility to provide strategic direction and manage the implementation of programmes.

4. Accountability

To be answerable for the execution of their responsibility to the Board and membership.

5. Fairness

To take a fair and inclusive approach to address issues of equity and social justice, consciously act against any form of social prejudice and discrimination.

6. Transparency

To be open and transparent in exercising their duties.

The above values are drawn and adapted from –

“Principle 1: Governing Body should lead ethically and effectively” in the King IV Code of Corporate Governance (2016)

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Theory of Change

Governance, Finance and Administration portfolio (Cara, Ayanda & Mokgophana)

• Growing capacity of the secretariat: Appointment of a new SAMEA Coordinator and Emerging Evaluators Programme coordinator
• Strategic focus on partnerships: New partnerships with the NSG, UN agencies (UNICEF,WFP, UNFPA,FAO,ILO etc) and exciting developments with several others (ZENEX,DPME,CLEAR-AA,NASCEE, JET, the NSG etc).
• Participated in the Public Service Dialogue focusing on performance management organized by DPSA, & Unisa M&E Policy Launch
• Building continuity of resourcing: Implementing two major non-conference projects in financial partnership with others: Our EE programme and the Hackathon.
• Strengthening our expression of strategic intent:
• Strategic Plan
• Development of a SAMEA Theory of Change
• Intentional about partners full participation during our strat plan
• Ensuring a continuity of well-equipped Board members: Improving on induction and encouraging members to run

Membership Services, Advocacy and Communication portfolio (Eleanor, Kemedi, Ian)

• Commencing a comprehensive SAMEA review (offerings, membership services & communication) which will inform a review of SAMEA’s offerings & membership options;
• Membership
• Steady at (+/- 450-500 despite 2021 being a nonconference year);
• Growth in the number of institutional members.
• Communications
• 2x SAMEA newsletters in 2021 (one further planned for October);
• Website updates: EE and evaluation hackathon pages;
• Enhanced Twitter presence.
• Advocacy with government
• development of a concept note with root cause analysis and identification of practical ways forward, which informed SAMEA’s work in 2021 in a crosscutting manner.
• Involvement of DPME, DSD, DBE and Presidential Climate Change Commission in various teams in the evaluation hackathon.
• Regional chapters - collaboration with the KZN MEL network: launch as a SAMEA regional network.

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Membership Statistics

Our Institutional Members

Co-creation portfolio (Ian, Eleanor & Takunda)

• New portfolio – seeking to apply co-creation in SAMEA’s work, and through specific co-creation activities:
• Priority – hackathon – running 8-22 October so still live during AGM, >100 participants, from CSOs, gov, EEs
• Partners: UNICEF, NASCEE, DPME, JET
• 8 teams, 8 topics in 4 themes:
• addressing systemic crises facing SA (developing criteria and guidelines for environmental sustainability, equity)
• M&E during times of crisis (virtual M&E, rapid evaluations)
• Developing approaches to M&E rooted in African knowledge systems (underlying concepts; case studies)
• Other practical applications of M&E - Development of an Evaluation Evidence Map
• Products developed in hackathon and then refined afterwards, seek to build on this and apply them in 2022

Emerging Evaluators (Tikwiza & Kemedi)

Delivered webinars

• Considering the pandemic, the board decided to host the 2021 Capacity Building Workshops via an online platform.
• Purpose of the workshops is to enhance the knowledge, skills & capabilities of M&E practitioners & emerging evaluators; professionalization of M&E practice; strengthen M&E development and the community of practice.
• Theme: Monitoring & Evaluation in the Context of Global Crises
• Workshops were informed by a Training Needs Analysis exercise.
• Event was successful with 13 facilitators with diverse knowledge & skills; hosting 13 sessions; in attendance were 53 Registered SAMEA members; 37 Non-SAMEA; 92 EEs (incl. students) who received scholarships; EEs received data to the value R229/person.
• Key output produced a 2021 Online Capacity Building Workshops Analysis Report

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Capacity Building Workshops (Desiree, Cara, Babette, Tikwiza & Ayanda)

Research, Learning & Partnerships portfolio (Babette, Eleanor & Ian)

• 2021 Strategic plan: interest in a shared M&E research agenda
• Evidence map to identify M&E research gaps later identified as a precursor to the M&E research agenda.
• NRF funding proposal submitted for three components: (Not awarded)
• Component 1: Collaborative design of an M&E Evidence map (see Hackathon)
• Component 2: Encourage M&E scholars to focus research on priority areas through NRF bursaries.
• Component 3: Databases of evaluations on the SAMEA website (in progress).
• October Hackathon includes M&E evidence map as topic. Key priorities of the Hackathon team:
• Identify parameters of the evidence map, classify studies in an existing database on these parameters, propose a way forward to continue work on the M&E evidence map.
• DPME indicated interest in collaboration on an M&E evidence map from 2022 onwards (and happening in hackathon).

Lessons learnt!!!!

• In January, the Board set out ambitious goals for not just 1 but 3 years.
• We have levelled up in terms of the strategic & innovative work within the M&E sector and have made good progress. 
• The work has definitely stretched our capacity (a recurring theme across our mid-term reflection sessions). Both board members & secretariat capacity was and continues to be tested.
• The decision to postpone the conference provided space to pursue other initiatives with partners – this has paid off in terms of a more diverse funding base and larger range of initiatives implemented this year.
• A larger secretariat & portfolio of work requires a stronger institutional foundation – organisational policies can no longer be ad hoc and require investment.
• We also recognised the need to invest in expectation management, clear and open communication, maintaining a collegial atmosphere and frank conversations about challenges. 
• Institutional memory is being rebuilt and we need to prioritise Knowledge Management to safeguard this

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AGM’S noting

• Expand the EXCO by creating an Operations portfolio – setting up internal systems (financial and operational policies)
• Coopting additional board members based on their skills sets or strategic partnerships
• Setting up additional committees comprising of the wider SAMEA members
• Pipeline of the future Board members AND augers well towards the sustainability of the board

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